After Miss Julie

By Richard Zoglin

Strindberg's 1888 play is a milestone in modernist theater history, but not an especially likeable play. Patrick Marber's update, which moves the action from 19th century Sweden to London at the end of World War II, struck me as a gutsy and largely successful effort to bring the play's themes of class and sexual gamesmanship closer to home. Sienna Miller, making her Broadway debut, was a little starchy as the aristocrat who toys with her servant (Jonny Lee Miller), but she created something rare on a Broadway stage: sexual heat.